He followed the Boundary Wall in one direction.

Lin Hui first headed left, running for a while until he reached the shore of the Jade Sea.

The black Fog Wall actually extended all the way into the sea.

He hesitated for a moment on the shore of the green sea, but Lin Hui decided against testing his swimming skills and turned to sprint in the other direction.

But after running for some time without seeing a gate, he stopped again.

He simply placed a hand on the Boundary Wall, leaped effortlessly, and used his Inner Strength to push off from his feet, soaring lightly into the air.

After flying over the Boundary Wall, he began to plummet rapidly.

But in the instant he crossed the Boundary Wall, Lin Hui felt a chill on his skin, as if he had entered a strange environment with a significant temperature difference from where he’d just been.

’This is still the shore of the Jade Sea. How can a single wall cause such a drastic change in temperature?’

THUD.

Lin Hui landed steadily and scanned his surroundings.

Within the cavity formed by Ning Xiang, he could clearly see that the soil underfoot was black.

It was pitch-black, with no weeds or insects, like a patch of dead land.

He looked around.

Besides the grayish-white fog, he could see nothing.

After a moment’s thought, he turned back and made a simple mark on the Boundary Wall to identify his entry and exit point.

The Boundary Wall had a uniform appearance, looking the same everywhere.

So he began walking straight forward, perpendicular to the wall.

The fog churned. Slowly, Lin Hui noticed the mist outside his clear cavity was turning gray.

A dusky gray, as if the grayish-white fog had been mixed with dust.

Time passed slowly.

Just as he was wondering why there was still nothing ahead...

A broken stone wall—grayish-white and scarred with deep gouges—appeared before him.

The stone wall was about three meters high and very thick. Faint traces of colorful paintings were still visible on its exterior.

Lin Hui moved closer and realized the wall was part of a roofless stone house.

The entire stone house stood alone in the fog, about three or four meters tall. Its four walls, some taller than others, all bore deep marks of destruction.

Lin Hui reached out and touched the wall.

It was frigid.

Not just cool, but icy cold.

He sniffed the air and, for some reason, caught the faint stench of decay, like the smell of meat protein left to rot for too long.

He slipped through an opening into the stone house. Inside were a table and chairs, a bookshelf and wardrobe, and a bed—all made of stone.

Next to the bed lay the long-desiccated, blackened skeleton of a woman.

She wore a white cloth skirt and a gray-brown headscarf, her hand gripping tightly to a spot on the bed as if she had been enduring immense pain.

Lin Hui approached and prodded the skeleton with his sword. There was no reaction. He then searched the room but found nothing. All the drawers and cabinets seemed to have been ransacked, leaving nothing behind.

He left the house, and after only a few steps, he suddenly saw another similar stone house ahead.

He walked up to it. This time, the stone house’s door was intact. He entered to find it empty except for a crude stone statue in the middle. It seemed unfinished, as if the owner had left in a hurry and never returned.

A carving hammer, chisel, and other tools, all covered in a layer of dust, lay on the floor nearby.

He left the stone house and continued forward. More and more stone houses gradually appeared in his vision.

This area seemed to be a small village composed of stone houses.

But for some reason, it was deserted.

Just as he was about to leave the stone village, he suddenly heard an extremely faint gasp from the fog behind him.

The sound was incredibly faint; most Fog Area monsters would probably never have noticed it. But to an expert like Lin Hui, whose five senses were astonishingly sharp, the sound was as clear as if someone had spoken right into his ear.

WHOOSH!

Lin Hui’s figure vanished from his spot, reappearing the next second at the source of the sound—a corner of the floor inside a stone house.

He stirred his Inner Strength, raising a small gust of wind that blew away the dust on the floor, revealing a dark brown, circular wooden door beneath.

"Who’s in there? Come out," he said, his voice projecting into the space below.

There was a pause from beneath the wooden door, then a quick response came.

"Are you... a person?" The voice had a halting Taixu accent, sounding like a young child.

"Of course. Come out and talk," Lin Hui replied.

The voice on the other side went silent.

When they didn’t speak, Lin Hui didn’t press them. He could sense their hesitation.

Several minutes passed. 𝕗𝚛𝚎𝚎𝐰𝗲𝗯𝗻𝚘𝚟𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝕞

Finally, under Lin Hui’s watchful gaze, the wooden door was slowly pushed open from below.

A small child, bundled in a thick, grayish-black padded coat and sporting hair like a bird’s nest, peered out. His small, bright black eyes stared at Lin Hui with extreme vigilance.

"Are you really a person?"

"Of course. At this point, there’s no reason for me to lie to you," Lin Hui said. "I just got here and don’t know this place. Are you a local? Can you tell me about it?"

"!!??" The child stared at Lin Hui for a long moment, as if looking at a god.

Then, he spoke.

"This is the ruins of the Village of Bewitching Sounds. How did you dare come here knowing nothing!?" The child’s shocked tone made Lin Hui feel as if he had done something incredibly reckless.

"Why do you say that?" he asked.

"Why? Why are you asking why? It’s dangerous outside, isn’t that common knowledge? What leaves me speechless is that you came into this place completely unprepared..." The child had a look of utter disbelief.

"Can you tell me? What’s so dangerous about this place?"

Lin Hui sized up the child.

The clothes on the boy seemed to be scrounged from who-knows-where; the shirt was too big, the pants too short.

"The most numerous and dangerous things in the Village of Bewitching Sounds are the Illusory Sounds, and... they’re here!" The boy’s expression turned to terror. He abruptly ducked his head back down, retreating into the tunnel and disappearing from sight.

Leaving Lin Hui standing alone, he inexplicably looked up at the sky.

Amidst the churning fog, the pale face of a man slowly emerged.

The face looked to be that of a man in his thirties, but his expression was one of sorrow, and his mouth moved continuously as if muttering something unintelligible.

All of this was still relatively normal.

The key was, the man’s face was a bit too large.

It was over a meter wide, its expression stiff, its eyes gray and lifeless.

"Finally," Lin Hui sighed in relief and slowly drew his sword.

WHOOSH!

Ruyi instantly traced a silvery-white line as it cleaved vertically down the center of the man’s face.

The lightning-fast Sword Speed didn’t even give the man’s face time to dodge before the blade struck.

RIP! The man’s face split into two halves, fell to the ground, and then quickly faded away into nothing.

This time, Lin Hui actually felt a slight resistance. This thing was clearly stronger than the ones inside the Boundary Wall.

But he still couldn’t determine its strength relative to his own.

He frowned and returned to the entrance of the boy’s tunnel.

"You can come out now. I’ve taken care of the monster outside," he projected his voice.

CREAK. The wooden door was pushed open, revealing the boy’s bird’s-nest hair.

"I heard. It’s not as simple as you think," the boy said, panting and sizing up Lin Hui.

"You must be an adult from the city, right?" he guessed. "Only people from the city would wear clothes so clean and nice."

"What did you mean just now when you said it’s not that simple?" Lin Hui asked.

"Turn around and you’ll see," the boy sighed.

Lin Hui was slightly stunned. He quickly turned around, and his expression changed instantly.

Behind him, at the broken window of the house, were now all sorts of bloated faces, each over a meter wide.

They were all crowded at the window, staring sorrowfully at Lin Hui.

CRACK...

A faint sound came from near Lin Hui.

The ground beneath his feet began to bulge rapidly upward, then wrap around his feet, his legs, and continued to rise, as if to envelop his entire body.

WHOOSH!

Just then, a faint, formless current of air swept through the room.

For some reason, the boy shivered and looked around. Seeing nothing wrong, he turned his attention back to Lin Hui.

Then, his eyes widened in horror as he discovered that the giant faces that had just been crowding the window were now completely gone.

And the adult, Lin Hui, was slowly sheathing his sword.

"...!!?" The boy’s stunned gaze remained fixed on Lin Hui.

He had personally seen these monsters overrun the entire village, slaughtering everyone and turning it into a ghost town.

Those so-called Martial Artists and Summoners had been utterly helpless against these faces.

The elders of the village had initially called these faces "Crying Faces."

They possessed immense strength, incredible speed, and bodies as hard as the toughest ore.

Now, feeling Lin Hui’s questioning gaze upon him, the boy jolted. He suddenly realized he could ask this person to take him away from this area!

"You’re... so strong! But to get rid of these Crying Faces for good, you have to go to the center of the village and destroy a wooden door there! If you don’t destroy the door, the Crying Faces will only get stronger and more numerous over time."

"A wooden door? Can you lead the way? In exchange, I can take you with me when I leave this place." Lin Hui saw through the boy’s intentions.

"Deal!" The boy’s Taixu also became more fluent as he spoke.

He immediately climbed out of the hole and stood before Lin Hui.

The boy was only as tall as Lin Hui’s thigh and looked to be about seven or eight years old.

"Where to?" Lin Hui gestured for him to lead.

"This way, follow me." The boy walked out the door and headed in a familiar direction, completely unaffected by the surrounding fog.

As the two walked slowly, one in front of the other, Lin Hui took the opportunity to ask the boy about the surroundings, specifically the difference between this Primal Fog Area and the Safe Fog Area.

"I’ve never been to your Safe Fog Area, but I’ve heard that people regularly clear out the monsters there, so the threat is much smaller. Here, no one would bother clearing out monsters, because first, you can’t beat them all, and second, you can never kill them all. It’s pointless."

The boy explained. After a pause, he suddenly asked.

"My name is Xia Si. What’s yours?"

"I’m called Eight," Lin Hui replied, giving a random alias.

"Okay, Eight, you know how to deal with the wooden door, right?" the boy, Xia Si, asked.

"The wooden door? What do you mean?" Lin Hui blinked.

"You don’t have wooden doors over there?" Xia Si asked, surprised. "I mean the mysterious wooden doors that can appear anywhere, at any time, without any pattern. Each time one appears, it can bring either wealth and treasure, or great disaster and danger."

"...Never heard of them," Lin Hui said, shaking his head.